Teller Interview on Two Magicians One Mic Podcast

alright sounds a lot better thank you alright well then here I am on my on my headphones in the Houdini alcove that's not cool that's I'll guide you around it a little bit no cool that big thing is is a cross that was in his collection of unpleasant things to escape from it's a it's a carnival item it would be erected on the stage and the the person who's doing the spiel on the on the valley would take usually a runaway 13 or 14 year old drug-addicted girl who happens to be with a carnival and tie her neck wrists it had neck and wrists to this cross and then at them at the moment when they were trying to turn the turn the tip and bring the whole group into the into the tent all of a sudden she just walk away from it the ties would be gone it's it's got an elaborate internal mechanism with blades that slice the the ropes that have been tied around it at the critical moment if you just jab jab your heel into a particular place on the cross and back over here there's other stuff there's a the first letter that Houdini wrote to his brother after his mother died where he he says - it's tough and I can't seem to get over it sometimes I'm alright but when a quiet moment arrives I'm as bad as ever and the the letter the letter that you see there in the green velvet mat is a letter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after they had their first big split you know when Houdini was in Atlantic City he hung out with Doyle and and Doyle's wife gave a famous automatic reading that you've probably read about you know it was was a letter from Houdini's mother and she was off in a trance and and Houdini had been very close friends with him for a long time and liked them very much and you know he took the letter and he was moved to the time actually I think moved to tears and then he you know in a moment after he had a chance to reflect on it he realized there were a few things wrong with the letter one it didn't really contain anything evidential there wasn't anything that's that only his mother could know that he could be could be told to him and two it was written in English which was a language his mother did not speak she lived in the United States for a long time but never spoke English good you did never learned it and three at the top of the letter there was a cross not exactly the first rabbis wife would draw yeah it's it was amazing how Conan Doyle is just who wrote one of the smartest characters in fiction was such not the same himself when it came to evidence-based thinking I know you can understand that though you know with his son dying yeah it didn't die didn't die of battle wounds either night of disease I think something like malaria but but you know the death of a the death of a child is just about the worst thing that can happen to you and is likely to unbalance you combined with of course that you know that British thing of I'm very well educated so you can't fool me yeah we all know how that works yeah fascinating i we didn't do a formal intro I'm gonna if you don't mind me to keep all that because that was absurd a fascinating okay thanks for coming this is two magicians when Mike my name is Nick call that's simon cornell and today we have teller thanks so much for being with us teller it's my pleasure it's nice to be with be with friends while I'm alone yeah yeah go for its own oh yeah just so how's what's what's changed about your life with this whole pandemic well the obvious thing of I'm not doing this show every night at 9 o'clock which means I'm going to bed earlier which is probably good for me I'm very immediate very carefully I was swimming for an hour a day and six days a week I'm working out via FaceTime with a trainer who's also my physical therapist who knows all that little foil so I expect to come out of this if I don't die I expect to come out of this healthier than I was when I went into it and we just got out of serious back surgery correct well over the I I had a real bad spell over the last two and a half years where I had base of three back operations and I believe that everything is now in very good shape and that's that's that's good I'm very happy to be back and in working again and not in excruciating pain which I was doing for a while you know I go onstage and smile my cheerful teller smile step into the wings squat to relieve the pressure on my lower back scream and then stand up and walk back on stage smiling again which I guess is ideal a you in terms of not doing the show are you finding it going so crazy or are you kind of enjoying the vacation or a combination of both well it's both really I I like I love doing the show and it's always the high point of my day it is that wonderful jolt of satisfying adrenaline it's a large jolt of you know simply ego gratification because the audience generally likes what we do and that's that's it's nice to have people go oh we like you so that's that's I miss that tremendously and at the same time for the last probably five years the combination of these surgeries and the incredibly intense work schedule has made me frequently say oh couldn't I have just some time off like some spa time and so I'm getting that in spades and that's okay that I'm I'm fine with everything I'm just I've been very very lucky most of my life and this is another situation where so far I've been lucky yeah yeah I've experiencing a similar thing for different reasons I really kind of needed some downtime and the fact this pendant because obviously a terrible thing but it has had some silver linings a bunch of us more fortunate privileged people I've talked to so many performers that are kind of yet going through that too and myself included of this is just like a mandatory vacation it's helpful but I'm happy to know what it's going to be finished as well - I I do miss getting up on stage well that's the the the weird thing about this is not knowing how long things are going to go on or exactly what's happening or exactly what's happening so it's a real it's a it's a serious chance to adjust your philosophy two to one I mean we never know what's going to happen tomorrow but now we really never know what's going to happen sure yeah and and so this is a this is a chance philosophically to address that oh yeah it's a weird Zen thing of just truly living in the moment because you have no clue have you noticed in terms of your own philosophical adjustment any takeaways so far from your point of view both for you personally or anyone else Lodge no I've noticed that a change in in my sense of time that more than anything I days are shorter and that's pen pointed out that out to me yesterday he said have you noticed how short days have become you know you get up and you do a few things and then it's bedtime already and that really is true for someone who's you know used to having the high point of his day be at nine o'clock at night and now at nine o'clock at night is what I'm thinking about taking my bath and reading it going to bed it seems like the day has shrunk I would imagine this is you know more closely akin to what it was like back in the candle light days sure linen mmm well that's something that is well known that if you want to again time moves faster as we get older that's well documented but if you want time to go slower the more different your days are the slow young goes the most of the same they are the faster they blink by and we're kind of in a position right now yeah I also don't normally spend two hours a day on fitness stuff you know then that's two hours a day that's just you know sort of gone but I'm so glad to have it because you know although the back surgeries did not did not give me an opportunity to retain my physical very well yeah so maybe I can get back to that potential blessing in disguise even with all the drawbacks I was also thinking about just thinking about you have like most Vegas performers this incredible show schedule of doing the same thing again again night in night out every week and what I've done I mean Nick and I did a bunch of things like that together I found myself going insane from the repetition but you and Penn are in this great place where because you're constantly cycling in new material you get to retain that excitement I believe is that how you experience it yes I yes yes or no I I do not have trouble doing material that I've done before I do not get bored of it I just don't it's I think it's because it's all really difficult so they you know I mean you you try doing 300 shows of the red ball trick and see and see if you don't just get better yeah because it's so difficult and things that are things that are I mean by the time we finished the last the last pre foolís season I believe maybe there were too old things in the show out of 18 so I always feel sort of desperate to try to get the new stuff good enough in in time and and fortunately you know when it goes on TV you do have the luxury of choosing camera angles at least yeah you know and that can help that can that can help make stuff that was not quite ripe seem riper but you know we we and of course the back surgery happened in December so a lot of the work that we did was leading up to that and then I was off for that period of time and then when we came back we were intensely intensely putting the material into the show and again it's none of it is easy material none of it is virtually none of it was just adapted from from from you know from some previous composition but so there was just tons tons to tons to do all the time and you know we this year we didn't have our you know our usual our usual critic Johnny Thompson he died last year during the shooting of Poulos and you know the great thing about Johnny is he was so generous all the time yeah then he taught us a lot there a lot of what was in him is now in us and our crew I mean he he really lives I mean literally lives on in what he what we learned from him about how to watch things about how to solve problems all of those things if any of your listeners don't know Johnny Thompson is a a well known Las Vegas magician and magic consultant famous for his act tomassoni and company which is the you know the one hilariously funny dove act that anybody ever did in which he plays a pompous pompous polish magician and his wife plays a very skeptical dragged along for the dragged along for the ride over the hill show girl who has no patience at all with with Johnny and Johnny was I believe at the time the most knowledgeable magician or nourish and we had we we worked with him for about 20 years or so but he was 84 and you know in dubious health and we were very sad to lose him but now working is a different thing one of the things we found is that all the stuff that our crew has absorbed from Johnny now our crew has become very good Watchers of magic though you know they don't just check angles but they say that doesn't have enough that that movement doesn't have enough violence to it or something along that line you know you're taking too long with that so we have we now have a different set of Watchers and we also invited the Jeff McBride in for a session or two and of course he's wildly knowledgeable about everything and that was very helpful but you know we're learning to sort of use the magic community to substitute for the one guy that that sort of knew it all yeah when did you guys decide when did you decide to put him because you do Johnny's famous dove act in the show now when did you decide to put that into show I don't do it right now that was that was in preparation for last year's fool us and the new material took priority over okay however the sit for a long time pen and I discussed the idea of doing a cover tune you know music musicians do covers all the time but mostly magicians just sort of steal from each other and we we thought it would be great to do an absolutely classic act not in a non animagic history conference sort of way but an absolutely classic magic act that from from the past just the way it was done to just do really a very solid honest cover tune and I was shooting a series of zombie movies which I can send you the link to after this and you can may be posted with this but I was doing a series of zombie movies about what happens when they when the zombie apocalypse overtakes Vegas and one of the episodes involved me wandering into a Johnny me being first being shot by Johnny and then finding myself the guest of Johnny and Pam in their trailer on the outskirts of Las Vegas where they keep their act in shape by strapping zombies to chairs in the living room of that trailer and then doing the act for the zombies to see if they can still get laughs out of and while we were doing this and I was watching them do the act I thought wait a minute they've just retired this act it is an absolute classic of magic we have the people who are doing it right here to teach it to us why don't we make this our cover tune and I pitched it to Johnny Johnny pitched the Japan Pam was delighted and the two of them worked with us for about a year and a half to get that into the show Pam worked with Georgie our show girl to to teach her all of the moves and the styles and the and the method acting thinking because Johnny and Pam you know we're both method acting both trade and you know method acting Aitor and so Pam taught Georgie and Johnny taught me and my gut that act is hard Jesus Christ be the the dove stuff alone the deaf stuff alone is not falling off a log it's juggling of the first sure the first magnitude and and then to try on top of that to do that kind of visual physical comedy that Johnny was able to do concerning nuances of facial expression of body language to go into actually making that play there's so much and so much of it is also just who he was yeah uh you know and he was using all of that you know johnny was angular and and natively funny and he was negatively funny which I'm not I'm able to get I'm able to get laughs at times by certain kinds of surprises and certain kinds of thinking but I'm not a funny person johnny was a funny person and that made a big difference hmm yeah that's I had the pleasure for at least I only got to see him once live in the close up room at the castle and I'm pretty I'm not a hundred percent but I'm pretty sure he used his age as a misdirection at one point I remember what the trick was and the audience is like oh that's cute he's an old man and then he still got them and it was just mind ball it was so able to see yeah I my favorite my favorite recollection of Johnny is probably this Iife you years ago I co adapted and co-directed a production of The Tempest by Shakespeare who my friend Barbour and mentor Barbara Robertson was in and she had a blast Oh Barbara was great oh yeah she was great she's the queen of Chicago theater what a wonderful actor yeah and we were rehearsing we were we were experimenting we were experimenting with an idea for aerials turning into dogs to scare away some people on stage and we were looking at this problem from this angle of that angling we had the whole cast there and it was it was very frustrating and everybody began to get very tired and it was about six o'clock in the evening and I was I sort of walked out I said let's take a ten-minute break and I walked out I thought well I'll come back in and I'll say okay we've done a fine job for today let's let's call it for today and go home so I go out and I have a cup of tea on the outside the outside the theatre and I come walking down the hall and as I'm walking down the hall towards the theatre I hear laughter and applause and I walk a little farther down the hall towards the theatre and there's more laughter and applause and I walk onto the stage and I look and there is Johnny with the entire cast gathered around him doing his you know he had not an enormous repertoire of favorite card tricks but doing the the cream of his of his repertoire for those people who were screaming with delight absolutely screaming with delight and uh then you know and applauding and he had but when I looked at them all their eyes were bright they were ready to go back to work and I said okay let's get to it you know and we went back and spend another three hours he had energized them by reminding them of the power that magic has on an audience no magic has this extreme power on an audience it's it isn't like just a play where you're unwillingly giving where you're willingly giving your your make-believe you're willing willingly suspending your disbelief magic has this this sense of that that willing suspension of disbelief spilling over into what might be reality and the the the level of energy that that that strikes in an audience is so intense and they did it for those people and that's when I think of Johnny I think there's there there's a guy injecting the joy of art into people just by doing wonderful card tricks yeah sure that story really reminds me the fact that one of things we struggle with a lot is as magicians connecting with that sense of wonder ourselves because you lose it a lot of the time like you gain the ability to create it and you know I would watch someone like Johnny do a cadre go off that was really nice the executors I'm not experiencing that just reality shattering Wonder and astonishment it's great to watch that I'm gonna be reminded of the power of it because I find it easy to forget and lose touch with yeah I mean you mentioned your relationship you know I really like how you describe magic you know spilling over into reality how do you see what's the the relationship between magic and theater I mean are they different or the same is there any philosophy that you've kind of learned over the years with them well magic is a special subset of theater it reminds me a little bit of you know there's there are those wonderful wood cuts and engravings from people like Rygel and Bosch in which there's a scene Oh a scene of a bunch of townspeople or a scene from hell and it has drawn around it a frame and every once in a while you'll see one of those in which a foot of somebody who's in the picture sticks out of that trend and that foot is I think we're magic lies because you know magic magic does it's impossible to watch magic passively it's it's you know you can sit there and you can kind of listen to a concert relatively passively I mean you might be tapping your foot you might be singing along with the lyrics now you can watch a play and you can get excited about what you know the story that's happening or then an actor's performance but magic you cannot watch passively because it causes a terrible conflict in you and that terrible conflict is the signature of magic it's it's that it's the conflict between what you see and what you know you see something happening and you know it can't be happening and this dissonance that's in yourself makes those two things strike at each other and create a kind of a spark it is as I like to say to the public It's Magic is not a comfortable form to watch you can't just sit back and smile passively because it's a little offensive it's a little insulting it's doing to you what you try not to have done to you in everyday life which is it's fooling you and that's there are very few situations in which getting fooled is it is a good thing and magic is the signature one of those sure yes that makes me think about I would love to hear you thoughts on this I've been sort of half forming a theory for a while about why do we as humans actually like magic and my theory is like you're probably familiar term that all theater is all art is basically about sex or death eventually and whether or thats reduction is to go true but we have we enjoy things that bring us close to death like roller coasters or bungee jumping or eating really hot chili pain discomfort but that they're still safe they're not actually gonna kill us and I think magic is a similar thing it's got this nastiness but in an interesting way it's like really bitter coffee or a really scary bungee-jump well that's nice and like magic is really bitter coffee as you're really good yeah I mean somehow manages to make coffee about magic in almost every episode I don't know how he does it but it's coffee now is you literal I've been thinking about like the bungy jumping the roller coasters for years but the coffee literally occurred to me while you were talking about that with it really is it is it is like one of those those foods that's uncomfortably impenetrably spicy norman likes it some people just find it no I don't like it not knowing that and that's okay I it's I there's another sort of theoretical position I've often espoused on magic which is that since the most important decision we ever make ever about anything is what's really going on right we have to we have to decide what's really going on and if we make that we make a mistake about that you know if we if we don't if we don't realize that this is that the light has turned green and there's a bus coming at us and we step out but we've made a terrible mistake or if we employ a chiropractor to cure our flu we that's a terrible mistake but there is one situation in which making that mistake is harmless it's a sort of a playground for that for that difficult for that for that thing that is so important in real life go to magic and now we're suddenly in the playground where we can play with that and enjoy making mistakes yeah jump off a cliff but with a bungee attached yes exactly but the it also makes me think about there is this sort of intense yeah that on some level we know evolutionarily that if we can't trust our perception we're dead the Tigers gonna get us the rocks gonna hit us we're gonna step off the cliff and so when we are confronted by this reality that our perceptions are clearly inaccurate its I think on some hindbrain lizard brain level it's deeply and profoundly scary and unsettling mmm and but can be in that in a really fun interesting way that's that's right yeah I mean shifting gears a little bit here um a lot of what I do is kind of nonverbal and I've obviously been inspired by your you know holding on verbal character does it ever get strange about just kind of living in that world or people constantly coming up to you and saying hey you don't talk like does that ever get annoying or is that something you've just kind of embraced over the years because that's I I struggle with that a little bit back and forth because I do a full silent show at times and it's like oh it's really nice how you didn't talk and I'm like what what about the magic I know that you've made jokes about it I listen to that story toll on the moth website where you open with a joke about that that you get credit for just talking yeah oh yeah well I I remember I was once in Times Square and a cop I was it was very crowded and a cop put out his nightstick in front of my chest and stopped me and said name I said tell her he said I knew he knew I could make him talk you know I I stopped talking mostly as a rebellion against what I saw as insipid patter which is pretty much I mean there I with with strong exceptions like the stuff that Simon does you know patter is often merely narrative or or it's in some way insulting I mean you said here I have a red ball well yeah or you know it's insulting it's you know stuff like perhaps you don't know it but the brain the waves of your brain actually fly through the air and can contact the waves of other people I mean really any many intelligent person is just being slapped in the face by and that was really all I knew of patter apart from the more decorative stuff like you know John Mulholland type patter were you you know you tell a story about some ancient Chinese God who who you know whose whose statue vanished in the middle of the night and reappeared in some phantom way I all of that well that was all I knew as pattern and so I decided that it would be interesting to try doing magic without speech and without music and let my actions lie for me instead of lying verbally let let let place my actions out there to allow the audience to decide what was going on that is to fool themselves and that was it was very interesting what that does for me um as you can tell I'm a sort of academic kind of guy I don't speak in fire I'm not yeah I don't I don't speak like Bob Dylan writes poetry I also don't don't speak with the kind of jagged omnivorous vocabulary that somebody like Penn has that makes what he would then what he says is always that's all I always layered you know he'll he'll pick a word from science and he'll pick a word for rock and roll and he'll throw them in together and in in a beautiful way and with a voice and energy that is very good I'm just not that kind of guy by the way I love the irony that you described that distances pens jagged omnivorous voice well it is you know he devours words from all different kinds of from all different walks of life no I mean that was beautifully eloquence and poetic thank you I you describe him and so uh what I found was the one I didn't talk the ball zenus of it and didn't use music also didn't didn't have background music to keep people entertained it it gave me a kind of easy Authority that enabled me to walk into difficult circumstances and take control by some of the methods that I learned I found for example that if you yourself know where the plot of a trip is going that is what matters most if you know where it's going and you haven't revealed to them where it's going they will they will be there going ok where's this going what's he trying to do the same way when you when you see it when you see a movie you're always trying to say Oh what's gonna happen next what's happening now what is that person up to raising questions is a very strong piece of authority and if you know the answers and they don't know yet and you're gradually unfolding the information before them and they're trying to catch up with you this is a huge piece of huge authority getting method and it works very well for me because big by not talking I don't have the opportunity to explain so they just have to kind of catch on the most shocking example of this that I can remember was from a long long time ago when I was advertising a show that I was doing on the Princeton University campus with a rock band and they said well you need to go into the Princeton University pub at you know 9 o'clock at night on a Saturday and do something there and we'll advertise this show the Princeton University pub is it's got it's a cylindrical building right and it has balconies two or three levels of balconies around the outside and tables in the middle of the floor and on a Saturday night that the place is just a madhouse so I had them turn off the music which everybody yelled and screamed and said what are you doing turn off the music and I walked in and I did the needle trick I did the needle trick and at first what they do what they did was dropped paper cups of beer on me right from the balconies smashed like little you know like like wonderful like water balloons exploding on all sides but I very calmly got somebody up and began swallowing the needles and now people are going what the is he what is he doing what are those are those needles what's going on and by the end the entire room was paying attention to what I was doing and gave me a huge round of applause and and the whole thing was just I knew where the story was going and they didn't and they knew I knew like you said the one true question what's really going on yeah yeah it forces people to use a different part of their brain to I think that they're not used to using of just listening or just observing more so then I think they're used to observing which is my favorite thing about visual art it's it's also very intimate yeah with that without words as a curtain in front of you without clothing yourself in words you are kind of naked you are looking at them they're looking at you in a way that we just don't do that often with other people you know there's that you know just think about here you are in a room and you're face to face with somebody and you're not saying anything you're looking in a different way it's pretty sexy actually you know it's a it is a it really it has a sexual component to it absolutely yeah it's absurdly intimate yeah there's you can feel it you know in a different type of way yeah no words yeah yeah when I first when I first did the the red ball trick Jonesy wrote me this wonderful Jonesy our piano player at that in the Vegas show wrote me this wonderful music to go with it it was just great absolutely great and then one night he suddenly had had to have some rectal surgery and had to be out for a night couldn't sit on his bench so I thought well what about am I gonna use the recording of this no the recording won't sync up to what I'm doing I think I'm just gonna I'm just gonna try to ballsy it out and not use the music and we had used the music because Johnny said oh the ball trick is always done with music oh so Jonesy isn't there there's no music and suddenly I hear every breath the audience is taking every breath I hear every bounce of the wall and the whole thing came alive for me it was quite it was quite a revelation yeah just yet the removal of something you thought was necessary is kind of profound sometimes in magic was one of my favorite things in the process of working on new things is something you don't even comprehend okay this has now been removed from you and okay make do and it you know it opens up a new door which is you know beautiful it's great Simon did you have any questions no bunch of questions that I did if we hit them or not here are two visions one Mike we like to keep it free full their little preparation I got my little post-it note right here that's about it things something I'm always curious about because I think about a lot is there are there any things you find yourself again you get a lot of oh my god I didn't know you could talk hahaha and that will either be entertaining or annoying depending on the moment very actually up you and say it is always pleasant it is always pleasant I mean some some some people will be a little smug about you know do you know what time it is yes oh you're talking haha every single one of those is someone saying I know and like your work sure that's the what it translates I mean we experienced this in a very micro level compared to you on cruise ships it's like people are constantly trying to make the joke of the magician make my wife disappear make my bill disappear and through that is a truth of I really enjoyed your show and ninety-nine percent of the time people are just trying to relate to you and be nice so I sure yeah I understand that in a very tiny level forgiveness I mean you were in the middle of a question and interesting and I was just a follow-up the next thing like trying to relate often failing to but at least trying at least caring that's right it's good to focus on that part is there anything you find yourself wishing people understood or knew about your arts and your crafts you know been magic theater all of the above but I mean I find myself frequently trying to create material that shares and showcases some of the actual stuff we'd really do the art the craft the nuance because I realize I like that being understood do you have anything similar that you relate to that you try to bring visibility to to your work a great deal of a Penn & Teller material is based on the premise that every single person in the audience has read a magic book and has you know was a magic hobbyist for two months so you know you that's what you know we are we the reason that we're not the reason that we are have never been invited to join the Magic Circle in London even though they have several of our props on exhibition as classic as classic things is that we freely play with the backstage view of magic we think it's really interesting our piece looks simple is is sort of the classic illustration of that that that's that's a trick it's a sequence in which I light a cigarette take a puff on it throw it to the floor stamp it out and then light another cigarette and then we explain how that trick is done and that trick is done with a series of elaborate sleight of hand side of hand moves and we name all the sight of hand moves like palming switch and and so forth the idea is a very rich one that I I'm hoping we can get another bit out of some day you know the idea of simulating commonplace reality through an intricate sequence of sleight of hand is just so interesting because it suggests that all of the world that we see normally that the growth the grocery Packer isn't really putting the groceries into your bag the grocery Packer is secretly palming the groceries out and loading them into the bag as they wheel it to your car you know that the idea that the world is just this magic show going wrong that we can't quite penetrate because it looks so ordinary is intriguing to me I saw I think it was on I figure out what show it was on way back you were talking about that with a simple cup and bollard Robin placing the ball on the cup you false transfer the ball fake place at while covertly loading it you end up in the same place but if I are much more secure this route I think I might even there a guy in Egypt that do when you guys did that Penn & Teller special and that was one of the moments I remember being so amazed that he put in a false transfer like that just for you that nobody else would have caught yeah he was great I mean he just he was doing a magic for magicians and he you know he did the perfect non-load when there was no load there I don't remember exactly what he did but he had me completely I I was sure I was well ahead of him and I was and I was well behind if there anything you find is because you and pan have both done so many different projects and kinds of projects is there anything you find is sort of a unit any other any unifying themes in the work for you or is it just you do whatever seems interesting at the time and go with it that way yeah I mean we have this great luxury of having much more success than we deserve I mean we really and I do mean that it's really true I pen and I were when we were playing in San Francisco from about 1977 to 280 or so we were we were there with a third partner in the show called the asparagus valley cultural society in a little theatre that seated 143 people we were making a fine living we had our own apartments we were saving money we were eating well we were having a blast and that was my my my vision of what I would like to have us the the top level of success that I could ever actually want and then that show closed we closed that show to do another show called mrs. Wong's very seance of horror that was an absolute flop an utter flop we we spent we told ourselves we could afford to lose ten thousand dollars on it we lost every penny and we lost our self-respect and we lost our our confidence that our judgment was good and it took it took us three or four years to pick up the pieces start all over again as a two-man group now and to find ourselves venues where we could where we could work and in the course of this we happen to play a theater in Los Angeles that was run by a wonderful woman named Suzie deets who knew a New York producer who happened to be breaking away from the theater that he had worked for for years and wanted to open an off-broadway show and he he flew out he saw us and he optioned us and we thought oh he's never gonna take us to New York so he's giving us 1,200 bucks I'll sign there and then you know I don't know four months later he said well I'm taking you off Broadway and we went at this time we actually had a small run going successfully in Los Angeles after at times playing for four and five people at night ace now I'm taking you to New York at least well please don't do that don't take us to New York don't don't we have we're actually making money now for the first time in several years and he said well I'll give you another couple of months out there and then you then you've got to come out in April and we went with great trepidation saying you know you know we're risking everything to go do this stupid thing of doing off-broadway as it turned out we happen by nothing except chance really we happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right combination of things and the right producer the the the the atmosphere was just right very few people have the good fortune to have that kind of lucky moment you know and and and that kind of lucky moment only comes if you're not looking for it right if you're an if you if your ambition is I want to be on the runway well good luck you know you you you could you can have that that sort of ambition if your ambition is I'd like to do the best show I can you can do that for the rest of your life and if you happen to get lucky well then maybe you do get lucky and we did you know we happen to be in the perfect Little Theater in New York the producer was brilliant and I should tell you this thing about it this producer he said I'm not going to tell the press what you guys are we said what is that what do you mean I'm just gonna call you Penn & Teller there will be no little subheading you know the bad boys of magic I I'm no little subheading in fact I want to say to you guys magic is the M word you are not ever to in this word because if you mentioned this word in connection with a show this is at that time this is 1985 if you mentioned that word in connection with the show people from the suburbs will drive their station wagons in and drop off their children and though first-string Critic will ever come to it so we're gonna call you Penn & Teller and your poster will be a cartoon of a big guy and a little guy handcuffed together that's all the poster will date they will decide what you are I mean that looking into a producer with that level of genius yeah I mean that's just genius was quite something and then of course he he knew things that mattered in New York he we engaged the director who was helpful to us he hired the most legitimate possible set designer to design our minimal set the most legitimate possible lighting designer and sound designer so any you know when the New York Times came and they were coming in to a show that had a lot of credibility in spite of the fact that the stars themselves had no credibility at all yeah that's amazing remember that's that overlaps a lot with what probably a year or two ago I called you up asking for advice about trying to get a show off the ground and you said basically of that but also that basically planned further for the marathon not a sprint you know it might never be successful if it is it'll because of a random lucky thing just so make sure you're loving and enough to do it for its own sake so you can keep doing it and keep working on it for its own sake that's you know that that is the kind of thing that Malcolm Gladwell's talking about when he talks about the 10,000 hours that you need to put in you need to put in the 10,000 hours because you like putting in those 10,000 hours and they and and never forgetting that the there isn't really a payoff to life other than death you know that that that the time that you spend is happening now and you you'd better be savoring what you're doing is there anything you miss about those pre sort of mega success days obviously things are great right now there anything you miss about the old times there any drawbacks to your success I mean I I'm certainly working a lot harder now than I did in those days you know when you if you have one show a month that's very different from having nightly shows and having say something like foolís requiring 13 new bits for each season so I I work very hard but the fact that I'm working very hard it doesn't bother me in fact I love it so I guess I don't I don't get as much downtime although I'm getting a plenty heat right now and there was a point last week where I thought I wonder if this whole thing is just happening in my mind I wonder if this entire thing is just happening in my mind and I'm just imagining that I suddenly have the time that I've been looking for all this time and the cost of it is that the rest of the world is dying how horrible what a horrible what a horrible nightmarish thought but know that I think that would be about the Bethy not the only the only difference I do I do just I just got very lucky you know I was thought oh that's no fault you millet II I just got lucky how much am I heard I can't remember who said it but it was something like when you said you know we have more success than we deserve and someone would say so like don't go wrong we deserve a lot but we've had way more than that I the hot the the the the the see change in one's life is this moment when you can earn your living doing what you love that's oh that's the sea change you know it happened to me the first year I quit teaching and I was a school teacher for six years before I went into magic and I took a year's leave of absence because I thought that would be a prudent way if I was starving in an alley at the end of my my year of magic I could go back and be a school teacher for the rest of my I took a year's leave of absence and then I remember waking up one September day and going oh my gosh this is the first time in 22 years that I have not been in school either as a student or as a teacher I I don't have to get up in the morning and either write or grade papers I can get up and I can put a bunch of coins in a bucket and experiment with the miser stream I can do that that's what I do now and that that you know and I was at that point we were trying to launch a show in a theater we did the worst publicity stunt ever I mean the most highly you know unit asparagus pens unicycle leap for life which is this catastrophic attempt at a publicity stunt that ended up damaging cars and getting you know getting people injured getting pen beaten and spat upon that was that was that was our opening our opening gambit and starting a theater a theater career and that run finished and made no money and then we thought well we should be playing colleges or something because we didn't know what our audience was and that wasn't that wasn't succeeding but I you know we between times we did renaissance festivals you know with and with I did the cups and balls misers dream and the needles head did ball and knife juggling uh and we did we went to Philadelphia and we did streets in Philadelphia and made decent money on the streets so I was actually making money doing what I doing what I loved it was it was miraculous nothing nothing since then has been anything like that change there's a story at the end of I think Penn's more recent book everydays atheist holiday trees talks about seeing two performers on a kind of a small nightclub stage in Vegas and you know just lamenting of how if that ends up being you guys where he's performing in a room of you know not many people you'd still be thrilled you'd still be happy just to be performing together you know is that still true that scent it seems like it from what you just said that that's still very factual absolutely absolutely the difference between performing for an audience of 30 and an audience of 3,000 is very small and I think it was Alan Rossi that we were seeing and and it was there weren't very many people there but Allen and Rossi were having a blast because they were doing what they loved all right so that's where I saw Frank Gorshin you know famous as the Joker on the on the Batman series the Frank Gorshin the greatest impressionist who ever lived doing an exquisite act and working a small room for people who were absolutely delighted by him that's fine that's good yeah small rooms are sometimes way better I think my favorite Orient size is about 50 to 100 yeah there's no as profitable but oh god I love it when it's a small little tightly packed room where the crowd is really with you all the things you can do with that oh yeah yeah I mean you're experiencing the the individuality of each person coming at you yeah as we wrap up here Simon anything else you want to throw in no it's just been a pleasure to chat it's been ages glad you're doing well yeah yeah well yeah I know so far you know we just have to stay really careful and really skeptical yeah as always what's really going on mm-hmm I mean we always like to end the show I mean you can just gave us one which is a great one with your publicity stunt but it was this kind of like crazy weird things that have happened on stage anything I'm sure there's thousands but anything ever stand out or something just absurd that you're like how do I deal with this well I mean how do I deal with this I pan and I are not particularly good and witty covers hey you know the night that I might have this wrong but the at what one night we were in the middle doing the the bullet catch and the person from the audience grabbed the gun there's nothing to do there except send the person back to the audience and that's what we did Wow I there was there was one night when I was doing the I was about to do the needles and I invited the guy up to to hold the Apple that has the needles in it and he came up to the edge of the stage and he when he got to the top of the stairs he walked over to me on his knees you know just walking across the stage on his knees and I shook his hand gave him a round of applause and sent him back to his see there there was there was this is this is kinda this is kind of this is kind of one of those more amusing stories but we were I think playing Chicago and we were doing the water tank and that's that's a trick where I'm locked in a sort of a phone booth full of water determined to hold my breath until Penn succeeds in doing a card trick and during the course of it he fails for the card trick I drown and die and the signed card ends up in my diving mask so the the water tank had been shipped rather roughly it had cracked so we were on stage doing that trick and the water was leaking out onto the stage but more important for the drama of the trick it was the level of the water was coming back so that was allowing allowing me to breathe so Robbie living are our great crew boss of many many many many many years who always wears a abortion Lino hats and as somebody who would never with Robbie lemon comes out on stage with bucket after bucket of water to continue to fill the tank in order for me to be able to drown make sure make sure we can kill this guy yeah all the priorities straight we got it doesn't matter the stage is filled with water we just have to be sure that I can drown and I'm sure I would venture to say more than half the audience assume that was just part of it they might they might well have I don't know they do seem to very often give you credit uh well you don't deserve it it is such a beautiful thing when you have moments like that this is one of the raisin neck and I have been working on this improv magic smackdown show together for a while and it's so beautiful when you're working with people who get it and have got your back just when you go in yep they've got it under control yeah where we are learning we chose usually three people we were learning kind of what you and Penn go through it's very nice having been a solo performer for so long even if it's a day where you're not getting along it is nice to have somebody else on stage that you can kind of share these absurd moments with it's very special well we you know and we have we have a crew most of whom have worked with us for at least 20 years now sure so they are remarkable I mean they are absolutely remarkable they you know we the last week that we were performing before we did fool us we were making changes in the show order which in a big theater show is no small thing I mean it's changing the whole lighting hue all that sort of thing we were making big changes like that almost nightly and the crew would just say okay what's it gonna be never the same show once you know and they would they they would just they would just roll with it we've had we've had times where things have technically failed well you know one of the things that's really important as you know is always to have something that you could that's the go-to cover for the emergency kind of trick so for us it's the needles and the fire reading right the the the pens fire eating monologue we were we were performing in Vermont in the middle of winter and in a small rustic theater and the entirety of the power of the town went out right the entirety of the power of the town going out so okay fire ready Penn brought out and brought out the torches did the fire eating we ended the show and the audience was perfectly satisfied we now carry battery-powered stage lights our crew can whip out when the entire power of the building goes down good stuff yeah planning for the unplanned Bowl that's insane but that's our crew and they can read it and they they just read our mind space sure yeah they know it no the show probably better than you guys do at this point I would assume I'm sure actually there was one other thing I was gonna tell her you it's a small story that you were present for but it's additional angle I think you might might enjoy which was when I came to visual to do closing the show is the fullest prize in Vegas and an amazing time and it was just such a wonderful experience and then we were all backstage in the monkey room afterwards hanging out and chatting and I'm staying with my friends Tim and Amanda who were also in the room and we was chatting about magic and the poker chip trick and everything and at one point you said and I may be paraphrasing from memory but son you started to sense the wit yeah it's a really beautiful trick I think I think it's anyway I think it's probably one of my favorite pieces and I waited for you to sort of ellipsis into that season or in that show and then you just didn't in the sentence and then Tim in a manner I just shared this glance and they could just see my eyes widen like did he just say that holy I mean it really that poker chip routine is a masterpiece I mean it is I mean for all for all my for my sense of what what the word masterpiece should mean that's that it is because you've you so perfectly dovetailed the the ideas and the trick and it's so spare and it's and so funny I mean it's just it's it's one of those things that you see that you go okay I've seen I've now seen that and it's that that is what I would call a masterpiece and and and then that's that's what I meant yeah well you know in that case you'll probably appreciate even more thinking of some of the stories you've told of how you met Johnny over the years is is that trick is still to me very unfinished I still think there are a couple of bits that could be slightly bad about it I'm still working on I don't see it in any way finished I and and III I'm sure you see them see it that way and that is how it got that good ma'am because you kept seeing what was wrong with it or what what could be better in it and making it better to someone who has not been on the inside of that process I see only this exquisite you know gem but I there there are things that I've done for I have to calculate this more than 50 years that I I'm actually writing up for my journal of some of the pen and teller stuff that when I watch it I think oh I know what I could do to make that better that that moment that I made better before could be better better it could be better better if I just time things differently if other things I mean I I know I don't want to spoil the the neat ending of your of your podcast but here's here's the thing that magicians don't know and that it took me 50 years to realize it's that anytime you move fast it's a sign that you're doing something wrong almost any time that you move fast and for me that's particularly visible and in this one routine that I'm writing up there's a place where I move too fast and I spent the last year that I that I when I put him in doing it just trying to slow down and now that I've slowed it down I go oh yes and that's also not quite right yet but that fast that fast thing that fast thing or that the other thing the magicians do that just drives me crazy is they they believe that if they catch an audience's eye by looking up at them you know with this with this insipid grin that the audience will for that moment will not look at their hands oh come bless their hearts that's not the way it works if you if you do that that's a tell it's a tell and in this in this seasons fool us we do we teach the French drop and we talk about pens tell and mitel pens tell is he speak Mitel as I look up at the audience with an insipid our friend our friend doc Swan said tell teller his tail as he raises his eyebrows and then I realized they're raising my eyebrows is I'm going from this look at the innocence wide-eyed innocence so not to raise my eyebrows at the moment that I'm that I'm doing the the critical move is very difficult I'm now going through every silent bit I do realizing I do the same exact thing that's really funny it's really something it's magicians guilt is so hard to overcome even when you know it even when you know what's happening it's actually there speaking of that are there particularly off the more famous things you know the bullet catch the weld all the things that people would know are there any of those that jump out at you as things were you there are things you really think could be better that you're so thinking about yes spoilers are there any you can talk about like a timing thing or a a bit you wish was clear I think it's fascinating because people again see the outside they see oh my god this thing's perfect I think it's really interesting to know the mind of the creator behind it what what he or she is thinking about I believe that most of the bullet catch is good I believe there is one move in it that I will not identify that is not good it is done it is done way too fast and and that's just like putting a neon circle around it yeah I know that I won't we're always looking we're always looking for those moments and you know then then there's the there's the directorial thing that's so difficult and us people who work in a partnership know you have to come in at the moment when the other person is actually ready for a piece of direction and you one of the things that made our partnership very difficult for about the first I don't know 25 or 30 years was was that I I would tend to recognize something that was a problem and raised - pen when he was thinking about something entirely different now I know that I do that and and pen knows that I do that and over the last ten years or so we have learned to deal with the complexity emotional complexity of that and we you know so instead of I we've learned to bring a critical observation in with the right at the right time and with the right amount of true casualness I don't mean fake the casualness but I mean here's something I've I've noticed that I think is good could be could be could be better if we did it this way uh and to just be able to know how to have those conversations was a real it was a real game-changer this this last year of the foolís material for example was a total pleasure to work on because we had both learned that when to talk about something and and and also how do how to receive that kind of thing even if it grates on you the right there with the right level of relaxation it's very difficult especially when you have two people as violently opinionated as pen and I are about things we're just we early on somebody said there they're not two people you would invite to the same party great duality in your natures as you know everybody the different ways we like to take and give notes almost like love languages or communication styles something I'm thinking about because I know how I like to get notes but it's very different to a lot of people I know and how they prefer to get them how do I like forget how do you like to give notes I just like them direct brutal straightforward I don't like the being sugar-coated to me that's an annoying waste of time there's just tell me the thing sucks and what sucks about it and I'm good but that's weird that's me being on you I don't think that's better that's just I never really it's certainly easier for the other person yeah but really it's not though because most people are so trained knows if they do that the person will react badly and get angry at them and it's something I've noticed when I work with people I now sort of say hey by the way please constantly give me direct it they don't sugarcoat it just give me the note immediately and then it's making me think more about chatting fula yeah how would you like to get constructive feedback would you like it then and there would you like it afterwards would you like it sugar-coated like you know in a non tense moment long before it's actually time to give notes right that's the way to approach creative partnerships it's it's a it's a very it's a very it's a very complex thing I think I think both pena and I have gotten to be more like you in the last ten in the last ten years and but still what we have what I always have to remember is that Penn is thinking first and foremost about the content of what he's saying that is the absolute top and priority for him and until he has that sorted out in his head any little notes about you know your tipping this too much this way or that way is just to annoy him because he's he's wrestling with this very complex conundrum and he doesn't need the distraction of being being told while you're flashing this at that moment yeah although that's one of the easier ones yeah it's good it makes me think about when I worked with Shinagawa on quite a few shows and we have this interesting dichotomy we both care deeply about the magic but I also care slightly more about the narrative than he does and he has slightly more about the magical routining than I do and it's good because we both again the different prioritizations that people have in a moment and all these things are important but at different times I mean I I believe that you always want to work with somebody that you that you are essentially inclined to fight with your you always want to work with somebody whose perspective is different enough from yours that it's not two people agree two people agreeing makes no progress at all you know you you you need you need two different things to make a baby alright and then learn how to fight well yeah I mean one of the one of the most important things is simply to say we we will always exhibit good manners we will always say please thank you we will never yell and we that we we do not do any of that I mean there are moments where I'm sorry I have to go right now you know and you call them but we do that so as not to demoralize the crew and everybody else Dara yeah I mean it's a marriage you know it's it's you have to treat each other with respect especially when you disagree yep it will always be conflict but we can handle it gracefully and well and constructively yep well this has just been a treat you know when I started this podcast in 2012 and nobody was listening I never thought we'd be able to get somebody somebody like you on so I really appreciate you taking the time during this weird crazy quarantine experience that we're all having and you know chat and with us for a bit it's been fun thank you I agree it's very much well maybe again sometime in a year or so see how it's all going yeah well maybe maybe we can wrestle with some some question like what is misdirection oh let me go I like that yeah IIIi have some things to say about that all right well let's talk all right then stay stay healthy stay creative to you to it thanks but I appreciate it sure sure okay

Channel: Nick Paul

Views: 5,094

Rating: 4.9583335 out of 5

Keywords: Teller, Fool Us, Simon Coronel, Penn and Teller, Nick Paul, Two Magicians One Mic, Podcast, FU, CW, Magic, Magician, Teller Interview, Magician Interview

Id: Mr-0ckl4yME

Length: 68min 3sec (4083 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/JardinSurLeToit]

I originally heard this audio only. I was wondering if I would ever see video of it.

[u/VecroLP]

It always feels so weird to hear tellers voice, his choice to not speak while performing is such a powerful one. Does anyone know if he'll speak if you meet him on the street somewhere?

[u/loldogex]

i have never seen Teller speak....wow.

[u/Censkey]

Must be a lie, Teller can't speak